Rare Psalm book sells for $14.2 million

By Adam Reiss, CNN

Updated 0722 GMT (1522 HKT) November 27, 2013

Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild9 photos

June 2015 has been a big month for art auctioneers. Artist Chris Ofili's controversial work "The Holy Virgin Mary," which shows an African Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung, sold for $4,522,643 at Christie's -- a record for the artist, according to the auction house. Here are other items that fetched eye-popping record sales prices on the auction block in recent times:

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Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild9 photos

When Pablo Picasso's "Les Femmes d'Alger (Version O)" sold for $179,365,000, it broke the world auction record for any work of art, according to Christie's.

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Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild9 photos

Jesse Owens' 1936 Olympic Gold Medal sold for $1,466,574 at auction in December 2013, setting a record for the highest price paid for Olympic memorabilia. This medal is considered one of the most important in Olympics history and is one of four Owens won at the games in Berlin, spoiling Adolf Hitler's planned showcase of Aryan superiority.

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Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild9 photos

Norman Rockwell's painting "Saying Grace" sold for $46 million in 2013 at Sotheby's American Art auction. It was a record for works by the late artist and for a single American painting. The illustration originally appeared on the Thanksgiving issue cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1951.

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Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild9 photos

"The Whole Booke of Psalmes" -- universally known as "The Bay Psalm Book" -- was produced in the virtual wilderness of Massachusetts Bay Colony by the Congregationalist Puritans. When it sold for $14,165,000, it set a world auction record for any printed book.

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Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild9 photos

Titanic band leader Wallace Hartley's violin sold for $1.7 million at Henry Aldridge and Son Auctioneers in Devizes, England -- by far the highest ever fetched for memorabilia tied to the sunken passenger ship.

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Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild9 photos

An engraving from Wallace Hartley's fiancee, Maria Robinson, is attached to the Titanic band leader's violin.

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Art and collectibles: Going, going, gone wild9 photos

This 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 sold at auction for $30 million in England. It was part of a group of race cars that won nine of 12 Forrmula 1 World Championship-qualifying races during 1954 and 1955 and was driven by Juan Manuel Fangio.

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A 118-carat white diamond is on display at Sotheby's, a New York auction house. The oval stone was auctioned off in Hong Kong for a record $30.6 million.

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Story highlights

Buyer is philanthropist David Rubenstein

Gavel goes down at $14.2 million at Sotheby's

Rare Bay Psalm Book is the first book ever written and printed in America

The book came from the collection of the Old South Church in Boston

The world's most valuable book sold Tuesday for $14.16 million at Sotheby's in New York, according to the auction house.

The rare Bay Psalm Book is the first book ever written and printed in what is now the United States. Its sale set a record for a book sold at auction, Sotheby's said.

Philanthropist David Rubenstein purchased one of 11 surviving copies.

He "plans to share it with the American public by loaning it to libraries across the country, before putting it on long-term loan at one of them," according to Sotheby's.

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The Bay Psalm Book is a translation of the biblical psalms by the Puritans and was an important part of their church service.

"It's so very valuable because it is the beginning of Western civilization in our country," said David Redden, vice chairman of Sotheby's. "In fact, it is the first poetry in America -- it's as simple as that."

Currently, the 11 surviving versions of the 1,700 originally printed are in institutional collections, including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, the New York Public Library and the Huntington Library in California.

The book auctioned Tuesday is from the collection of the Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts, which had it for more than 300 years. It is one of two copies in their possession, with the sale intended to support its mission and ministry in Boston.

Congregationalist Puritans, who settled around Massachusetts Bay in search of religious freedom, wanted to translate and produce a version of the Book of Psalms closer to the Hebrew original than the one they had brought over from England.

The first edition of the Bay Psalm Book was printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tuesday's sale is the first time since 1947 and the second time since 1894 that a copy has appeared at auction. In 1947, it achieved a higher price than any other book printed at the time, when Sotheby's sold it for $151,000.

"This little book of 1640 was a precursor to Lexington and Concord, and, ultimately, to American political independence," Redden said. "With it, New England declared its independence from the Church of England."

Tuesday's sale eclipses the previous auction record for a printed book, at Sotheby's London, when a copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America sold for $11.5 million in 2010, the auction house said.